"Then it will happen this way: You make the kill. But your pain doesn't die with Harvey, it grows. So you run out into the night to find another face, and another, and another, until one terrible morning you wake up and realize that revenge has become your whole life. And you won't know why."

The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past.

"Vae Victus - suffering to the conquered. Ironic that now I was the one suffering. Not anything as pedestrian as physical pain. Rather the cruel jab of impotent anger - the hunger for revenge. I didnít care if I was in Heaven or Hell - all I wanted was to kill my assassins. Sometimes you get what you wish for. The Necromancer Mortanius offered me a chance for vengeance. And like a fool, I jumped at his offer without considering the cost. Nothing is free. Not even revenge."

"Mine wasn't the most original approach to the problem. An eye for an eye, the first principle of revenge. Old as dirt, still going strong. The cardinal rule in going after someone with an intention to kill was not to make it personal — which it almost always ended up being anyway. It did with me."

Properly speaking, there is no such thing as revenge. Revenge is an act which you want to commit when you are powerless and because you are powerless: as soon as the sense of impotence is removed, the desire evaporates also.

"No it doesn't! Cause there's still gonna be one guy with one eye! How's the last blind guy gonna stab out the last one eye'd guy's eye? All the one-eye'd guy has to do is run and hide, and the blind guy won't be able to find him. Gandhi was wrong! Just no one has the balls to say it..."

Buzz Lightyear: I just want you to know that, even though you tried to terminate me, revenge is not an idea we promote on my planet. Woody: Oh, well, that's good. Buzz Lightyear: [leans in] But we're not on my planet... [grabs Woody's collar] Are we? Woody: No...

Four years ago my partner - my friend - was killed and I took about as much revenge as any man can take. It cost me everything I had: what was left of my family, everything. Somehow I thought it would ease the pain but it doesn't. And somewhere in your heart you really have to accept that... and then you can begin to forgive yourself.

"Love turned to rage in that moment. So I hunted down, and murderedGrant Ward. Not to serve any good. Not to serve any belief. I wanted revenge. I wanted to feel him die. That's the sin that gave your devil new life."

"Americans always talk about the love of justice in that really abstract form, but what the person on the street really wants is street justice — the bad guy gets his comeuppance. The Caped Crusader and the something avenger, it's all about vengeance, and something like that. We don't have a hero named Jurisprudence Man."

"Writers, as a class, are the research-and-development team for the whole human race in the domain of revenge. We ennoble it, we glorify it; we earn our livings inventing wonderful and exotic ways to justify the delicious deed of puncturing the pompous who make our lives miserable. We create virtual daydreams for the masses in which the mighty are humiliated for their misdeeds of oppression against those who are still climbing the evolutionary ladder. It is our job to tend the flames of mythic vision, creating the cultural context in which the arrogant are accurately mirrored and drawn, so that all will know who they are. It is our job to prepare the ground so that the thieves of joy can be reduced to craven, whimpering, pitiful objects of scorn and abuse."

— David Gerrold, Alternate Gerrolds: An Assortment of Fictitious Lives

Some deeds are too horrible to go unpunished. The Lord's Church counsels forgiveness, but as anyone who has seen a witch-burning knows, the ministers of God are anything but forgiving. "Vengeance is mine sayeth the Lord..." but why should it belong to Him alone? Most folk are denied revenge or justice by the very institutions that revel in it themselves. The common man has neither the means to nor the permission to exact vengeance personally, and Church and Crown rarely do it for him. What is he to do? Nothing? Never!

Revenge and rebellion go hand-in-hand, united by hatred and helplessness. After a while, no damnation could be worse than the pain of doing nothing. To those who have been wronged beyond forgiveness - to the mother whose son was trampled by a princely brat, to the husband whose wife was raped by mercenaries, to the orphan whose parents were burned for a witchcraft they never practiced - retribution screams like a tempest in their veins. When God will not help, the Devil may!

I will carry Hell to your doorstep! I will make you pay! You will reap the hate you've sown On my Judgement Day! Sleepless nights and days of damnation, Soon and evermore. I will bring the Chateau d'If Knocking upon your door!

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